Formatting Quotations

Short Quotations (fewer than four typed lines of prose or three lines of
verse)
o Enclose the quotation with double quotation marks
o Author and specific page citation (in case of verse, provide line
numbers)
o Include complete reference on the works cited page
o Punctuation marks should appear after the parenthetical citation
o Question marks and exclamation points should appear within the
quotations marks if they are part of the quoted passage but after
the parenthetical citation if they are part of the text
o Example:
According to some, dreams express profound aspects of
personality (Foulkes 184), though others disagree.
According to Foulkes study, dreams may express
profound aspects of personality (184).
Is it possible that dreams may express profound aspects
of personality (Foulke 184)?
o Quotations from poetry (fewer than three lines of verse) mark
breaks in short quotations of verse with a slash (/), at the end of
each verse.
Cullen concludes, Of all things that happened there /
Thats all I remember (11-12).

Long
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

Quotations (more than four lines of prose or three lines of verse)

Place quotations in a free standing block of text
Omit quotation marks
Start on a new line with the entire quote one inch from the left
margin
Double spacing
Indent the first line of quotation, if citing multiple paragraphs
Parenthetical citation come after the closing punctuation marks
Example:
Nelly Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him
throughout her narration:
They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or
even in their room, and I had no more sense, so, I put
it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it would be

gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by

hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and
there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries
were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to
confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and
inhumanity was sent out of the house. (Bronte 78)
o Citing long sections (more than three lines) of poetry, keep
formatting as close to the original as possible

In his poem "My Papa's Waltz," Theodore Roethke explores

his childhood with his father:
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We Romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself. (quoted in Shrodes,
Finestone, Shugrue 202)

o Citing two or more paragraphs, use block quotation format, even

if the passage from the paragraphs is less than four lines. Indent
the first line of each quoted paragraph an extra quarter inch.

In "American Origins of the Writing-across-the-Curriculum

Movement," David Russell argues,

Writing has been an issue in American secondary and

higher education since papers and examinations came into
wide use in the 1870s, eventually driving out formal recitation
and oral examination. . . .
From its birth in the late nineteenth century,
progressive education has wrestled with the conflict within
industrial society between pressure to increase specialization
of knowledge and of professional work (upholding disciplinary
standards) and pressure to integrate more fully an everwiderning number of citizens into intellectually meaningful
activity within mass society (promoting social equity). . . . (3)

Adding or omitting words in quotations

o If you add a word or words in a quotation, you should put
brackets around the words to indicate that they are not part of
the original text.

o Example:
Jan Harold Brunvand, in an essay on urban legends, states,
"some individuals [who retell urban legends] make a point
of learning every rumor or tale" (78).
o If you omit a word or words from a quotation, you should indicate
the deleted word or words by using ellipsis marks, which are
three periods ( . . . ) preceded and followed by a space. For
example:
In an essay on urban legends, Jan Harold Brunvand notes
that "some individuals make a point of learning every
recent rumor or tale . . . and in a short time a lively
exchange of details occurs" (78).
o Please note that brackets are not needed around ellipses unless
adding brackets would clarify your use of ellipses.
o When omitting words from poetry quotations, use a standard
three-period ellipses; however, when omitting one or more full
lines of poetry, space several periods to about the length of a
complete line in the poem:

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
...............................
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration . . . (22-24, 28-30)

Endnotes and Footnotes

Use endnotes or footnotes for bibliographic notes, which refer to other

publications your readers may consult.
o Examples:
See Blackmur, especially chapters 3 and 4, for an insightful
analysis of this trend.
On the problems related to repressed memory recovery,
see Wollens 120-35; for a contrasting view, see Pyle 43;
Johnson, Hull, Snyder 21-35; Krieg 78-91.
Several other studies point to this same conclusion. See
Johnson and Hull 45-79, Kather 23-31, Krieg 50-57.
Or, use endnotes/footnotes for occasional explanatory notes (also
known as content notes), which refers to brief additional information
that might be too digressive for the main text:

In a 1998 interview, she reiterated this point even more

strongly: "I am an artist, not a politician!" (Weller 124).

Numbering endnotes and footnotes in the document body

o Endnotes and footnotes in MLA format are indicated in-text by
superscript arabic numbers after the punctuation of the phrase
or clause to which the note refers:
Some have argued that such an investigation would be
fruitless.6
Scholars have argued for years that this claim has no
basis,7 so we would do well to ignore it.

o Note that when a long dash appears in the text, the

footnote/endnote number appears before the dash:
For years, scholars have failed to address this point8a
fact that suggests their cowardice more than their
carelessness.
o Do not use asterisks (*), angle brackets (>), or other symbols for
note references. The list of endnotes and footnotes (either of
which, for papers submitted for publication, should be listed on a
separate page, as indicated below) should correspond to the
note references in the text.